I never thought being emotional abused could cause P.T.S.D. I was married to an abuser for 8 years. Got married on a Saturday and Monday he went to work and didn't come home. He thought he was going to live the life of a single man again. He had a 3 year old son that I feel in love instantly with and he thought I was going to be his maid, cook and child caregiver while he played around after work. He called me terrible names to lower my self-esteem names like fat, ugly crazy ect. He was in Vietnam war before I met him and sent blown up pics of the V that he killed to his mom and dad. I didn't see the warning signs, I just wanted a baby and be married so I would not be a so-called sinner to my parents. I could not believe how proud he and his parents were of these pics. Than, I heard how he would cut off the V ears after he killed them. A real sicko, I was married to. He woke me up many a night choking me and did not remember. He felt he didn't need any help seeing a shrink. I found out he was also an arsonist burnined down a bar and tried to burn one that I worked at while I was working. He had no consideration that 3 small children were upstairs. One morning after coming home from being out all night, I was upset and he pulled a gun on me. I called the police as now our child was just 1 1/2 years old had nowhere to go. The police didn't do anything because the gun did not touch my head. I put up with this for 8 years. Got married on my birthday and divorced exactly 8 years on my birthday with no regrets. He told me many times how he was going to kill me and bury me in the woods so I wouldn't be found till spring time. I told my family how scared I was and nobody believed me. He was so nice they thought. He has been waiting for 25 years for me to come to my senses and come back to him. Keep waiting huh! The only good came out of it was I got to love a child his son which we still talk and my daughter from my ex. Today, my daughter went to the hospital being pregnant and thought she was losing the baby but just got good news so far so good. She has lost 2 babies already. I thought I was going to be going through another set back. I pray she will carry it to full term.

Hi and I understand both sides to your story. The emotional abuse, was simply being ignored as a child, I felt like the unchild, like the commerical the uncola.
But I have many vietnam veterans and completely understand your husband. My trauma was just about the same as his, and some aspects I had it alittle worse in my opinion.
I have known men who were the body bag men, I was the only person one had talk to in about 20 years. I took him to my house, and he let out all he harboured all those years.
How he dressed them as best as he could, because it was important to him that the parents got to see them as handsome as he could make them. But they came in to fast and he couldn't do the job he wanted. He would have to let some go that weren't finished and it killed him.
I let him talk and weap. He thanked me over and over. When we first met, however, he was as mean as an ornery bull. We cursed at each other, and one guy, a vet too, said leave him alone, he'd think nothing of stabbing you, and I replied, he can try, I have a knife too. I saw his pain.
So we had a screaming match for about 20 minutes, as the bar we were in either listened or went back to playing pool or throwing darts or picking each other up.
Finally he realized I did know from experience what he went thru and that I was not going to give him respect, if he did not give it to me.
Well I finally tired him out, when I saw my opportunity, I asked him if I could buy him a beer. He looked about as stunned as a hairdresser who has a bald customer.
I knew his pain, he was hiding from the world, and never let anyone in, (sounds exactly like me at fifteen.), so I knew from experience what he had gone thru.
We sat and chatted for a bit, he finally let his hair down and I received a most precious gift, a simple smile.
The guy who said he'd stabbed me, caught me before I went to the bathroom, he said that guy doesn't even let vets in, he was amazed that he was smiling and that he even bought me a beer.
He said he mostly came in, and wanted to be left alone, and that's what he did for twenty years.
I'm stubborn. I saw myself in him, a hurt person, who just needed a friend.
I understand where you are coming from as well. You walked into a war zone without knowing it.
You had your dreams, and they never came thru. He did not know what was happening to him. He may never.
Nam was no picnic and I am not taking sides, at all.
I just understand both sides.
I'm sorry you suffered for eight years, and yes, someone with ptsd can give it to another. Knowingly or unknowingly.
When I was four or five, I was handed a live grenade, I gave back the present to the person who handed it to me. Kaboom.
I have no regrets and love that memory, not often did I get to get even with my traumatizing people, I was small and they were very large in numbers.
I understand the getting even part.
I had a sarge who helped me get thru alot of bad memories, he told me when I was in a whirlwind of flashbacks, that someday I would get flashbacks that were good ones.
I didn't understand it til they came. Me getting revenge for what was being done to me and so so so many others.
Revenge comes in many different forms. Some are physical, and some are just thoughts.
Some are verbal. Some are emotional, llike yours.
Again, I am sorry for your eight years of complete and utter confusion. It must have been such a nightmare to have walked into without the knowledge of all the stuff that would soon come after the " I do's".
This site is so very helpful. You will find many who understand what you are going thru.

How kind on your part for such a nice response. I felt bad for my ex too. I tried to give him a family life a house, child, love ect. But no matter how I tried it didn't work. He always wanted the house neat and clean. I would wash the walls and ceilings down, cook him many Italian meals he enjoyed, do things with him and the kids but sorry to say he wouldn't even let his own kids in. No matter what I did for him it wasn't good enough. My step-son only has good memories of me spending time with him not his dad. I guess the more woman he had, the more like a man he felt. Bringing home diseases was not my type of marriage. He wanted to live with these woman at night and come home to me in the mornings. A dream like many men have not a dream as far as I was concerned. He would force down pills in my mouth so I would pass out and he could go out. I woke up to him many times slapping me in the face as he put himself in my mouth. He gave me pills once and told me they were Qualuds, they weren't. I wound up in the emergency room, the docs thought I was going to die. He almost let me drown in Lake Erie in front of the kids, laughing the kids were crying and screaming. My brother-in-law jumped in to save me. The poor guy was bruised and scratched up by time he got me in the boat. It was lightening, my ex said he would tow me in on a rope. My stories could go on and on. I don't think I had 1 peaceful year in my whole life after I was 5 years old. Years after I divorced him he got in a motorcycle accident almost died himself. I went running to his side. I found out I do care about him as nothing happening bad but not enough to love him as a woman.
sunnydaze

You've been the mill and back again and returned because you knew he wasn't any older then the age he was when he went to nam. Sounds like he got stuck in an age, and you became his mom.
I am happy for you to have gotten the love of beautiful childern, you do have a purpose and that was and is to show those children what real love is. Not every child is born to the right parent, and not every parent gets the right child, but God works his magic so that some day it makes sense before we leave to that grand stand in the sky.
I would say your path was for those children, and the adult part of you was to help them relate to those who are stuck inside a hell in their mind not knowing their might be a way out.
I always wished I had my father survive, and that my mom would have been the one to die at a young age.
Your children are lucky that mom survived her hell scathe but loving and caring and nurturing and one day they may understand somewhat of what their fathers hell consisted of.
This site is good to gain knowledge overall, like what your husbands mind must be like.
I'm am very thankful for all I've gone thru that my mind did not split into a multiple personality, most books I read on it don't even cover the amount of abuse I withstood unwillingly.
I hope you find comfort here, you deserve a good rest, pull up a chair,,,,,,lol
I have the one by the fire place doing sudoku....there's one free by me or by the bay windows.

Yes, I felt like his mom more than his wife. You have great insight. I always said you don't have to give birth to a child to love them as you were their mom. I know in reality I put myself in this drama because suferring from P.T.S.D, I wasn't choosie with my choise. I was not living my dream of escaping home life by finding a worse home life with a husband instead of parents. I thought for sure I could change him. Nobody can change anybody. When our daughter was born everynight, he would tell me when I woke up in the morning my baby would not be there. After losing 2 babies, he knew this would get to me mentally. I didn't sleep for many months if not years. I always worried about the baby I wanted so bad would go missing. But., as I said I wasn't in the real world I was in lah lah land. Know I am happy being married but P.T.S.D. doesn't allow me to be really happy with what I have. I live in darkness and pray one day I can pull myself out.
Thanks once again.
sunnydaze

Sometimes we gravitate to things we know to be familiar, also sometimes we are lured intensely to bad situation, when completed, we find out more about our selves and possibly are able to fix slight errors in judgement we have made due to being untaught by those who were untaught properly, i.e. parents family etc.
you are doing so great in ready into your own life,
keep up the good progress, normality is just a word a white man made up, (joke, i am american indian) we are normal for who we are and where we are in our progress of fixing what we did not break in ourselves.
Congrats
Blessings hun
White Wolf
aka
Donna-Lynne
aka
better then yesterday and this morning

Everyday above ground is a good day! Sometimes when I am blue, I think of this saying that a good comedian and singer said at a tavern and it makes me smile. So true!
sunnydaze